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Mar 5, 2013

The federal
government commissioned the Gonski Report after realising that education
standards here had slipped in relation to the rest of the world, or part of
it.The report recommended
throwing a large increase in funding at the problem, along with a greater
degree of central planning.The
result of implementation would be a ‘one size fits all’ system Australia wide.

States with
conservative governments are objecting strongly with Victoria taking the
lead.Part of that state’s
solution is the use of school vouchers; unfortunately not for all students, but
for those seen as disadvantaged.It seems to offer schools more autonomy with accountability standards
included.

Given that the drop
in outcomes has come on the back of around a 40% increase in education funding
over the last decade, the Victorians make a valid point that there is little
difference in outcomes in relation to extra expenditure over a certain level:

The international literature highlights that, beyond a
certain base level of funding, there is no necessary causal link between
increased funding and higher educational outcomes.7 The
world’s best performing school systems are not necessarily the world’s biggest
spenders. For example, South Korea spends much less per student than the OECD
average yet outperforms Australia and many other countries by a significant
margin.

Public expenditure on
schooling per student in Australia is already slightly above the OECD average.9 Between 2000 and 2009, real expenditure on school
education in Australia increased by 44%, yet outcomes measured by the PISA tests
showed a statistically significant decrease; a similar phenomenon was observed
in the UK. …

... Merely increasing school funding will not lift the
performance of Victorian and Australian schools to the global top tier. Some
important reforms will require additional funding. But it is vital that
additional funding is invested sensibly and that it is directed to measures
that will improve outcomes for students. What is most important is how funding
will be spent. High performing schools in Victoria show that much more can be
done within existing resources and with modest additional resources.

The commonwealth, bureaucracy,
and teachers unions are outraged by these suggestions.Columnist Henry Ergas though,
demolishes many of their claims in The Australian:

Victoria's
proposals, released last week, to provide every low-income family with a
voucher redeemable in government and non-government schools, take those changes
a dramatic step forward. That they have the teachers' unions in hysterics is
unsurprising; but it is startling that the Gillard government, having spouted
the rhetoric of choice, has now joined the unions in denouncing policies that
would give less well-off parents a real right to choose.

The battle
cry of these enemies of choice is that schools are underfunded; their panacea
is throwing yet more taxpayer dollars at education. With those shekels would
come shackles: increased centralisation that adds layers of bureaucracy while
duplicating existing requirements in the states; and crucially, new limits on
entry into teaching and on the opening of non-government schools.

Australian
kids would gain nothing from that agenda. But the teachers' unions would be big
winners, in the form of more jobs, higher pay and less demanding working
conditions.

The long-term
increase in teacher numbers is telling: school students account for exactly the
same proportion of the population today as they did in 1951, but the share of
teachers in the population has doubled. Telling too are the cost increases,
with teacher wages per student in government schools rising, in real terms, by
33 per cent in the past decade alone.

Notoriously,
what hasn't increased are the outcomes: it is producers, not consumers, who
have captured most of the benefits of rapidly rising spending. And with
billions more set to be spent, the unions want to capture them every bit as
fully as they have in the past. Little wonder then that, like all cartels, they
want to increase the barriers to entry into their sector. …

State
premiers make a good point in that in coming up with their own solutions, they
can better tailor education to their individual states needs and are able to
pinch any better ideas coming from the others.